By Alison Auld The Canadian Press

SYDNEY - The remediated site of the plant’s tar ponds and coke ovens is being unveiled Friday as Open Hearth Park, a 39-hectare green area that features several sports fields, walking trails, art installations, a playground and panels chronicling the plant’s troubled history.

Cole MacDonald, left, and Daniel Petten work on setting up the concert stage on Thursday for this weekend's Stronger Than Steel event at Open Hearth Park in Sydney. Steve Wadden – Cape Breton Post

The park, named for the mill’s old open furnaces, sits on top of a solidified mixture of cement and the toxic brew from the former steel plant. The sediment is buried about two metres below and topped with various layers, covering up the residual slag that residents said sickened them, led to high rates of cancer, fouled the air and poisoned their homes and yards.

Jean Crawley grew up in the neighbouring Whitney Pier and remembers the stench from the ponds and the clouds of red ore that wafted above her home.

“Years ago, I could never, ever imagine it looking like it does now,” the 84-year-old said from her home. “It’s really, really beautiful.”

Crawley, who raised her three sons there and whose father worked at the plant, said the restoration of the green space should ease the anger that has festered among residents over 20 years of false starts and broken promises to clean up the mess.

Since 1986, other multimillion-dollar cleanup plans had been proposed but led nowhere. Then in 2007, the federal and provincial governments announced a $400-million plan to solidify and stabilize the sludge and then bury it. The plan includes setting aside $15 million for long-term monitoring and maintenance.

The decision to bury the waste came after an independent panel issued 55 recommendations on how to handle it. The panel cautioned against the stabilization and solidification process, saying it might not be the most appropriate technology.

Green party Leader Elizabeth May agreed with the plan’s opponents, saying the technology is untested and won’t likely contain the contaminants.

May, who staged a 17-day hunger strike in Ottawa in 2001 to press for the relocation of families living near the tar ponds, still maintains that testing done before the panel made its recommendations determined that concrete and the sludge that fouled the ponds won’t solidify properly.

“They’ve done a cosmetic cleanup for purposes of making it look like it’s all gone away,” May said in an interview Thursday from Sidney, B.C.

“But it’s a giant toxic sarcophagus and the chances that it’s actually going to keep the toxic materials of the Sydney tar ponds out of the environment forever are slim to none.”

Resident Joe Petitpas has similar reservations about the method, which was selected after a widespread public outcry led to the rejection of earlier proposals to incinerate or encapsulate the material.

“All we can do is wait and see what happens in the future,” said Petitpas, who grew up in Whitney Pier.

“The fact that it is usable space now is wonderful ... but that method is not a proven method. Only time will tell.”